It’s John Baird who is on the hook for G-8 money games

Lawrence Martin is the author of 10 books, including six national bestsellers. His most recent, Harperland, was nominated for the Shaughnessy Cohen award. His other works include two volumes on Jean Chrétien, two on Canada-U.S. relations and three books on hockey.

John Baird says he “topped it up.” Does topping it up really mean Canada’s foreign affairs minister covered it up?

One of the big mysteries in the G-8 legacy fund controversy was how $50-million that was sold to Parliament as part of a border infrastructure fund came to be used for an entirely different purpose. That purpose was 33 projects to spruce up Tony Clement’s Muskoka riding in preparation for hosting last year’s G-8 summit.

Baird, who was infrastructure minister at the time, explained to the Commons’ public accounts committee Wednesday that he was the one responsible, that he used the border fund as a “delivery mechanism” for the Clement projects. He conceded that it wasn’t the way it should have been done.

It was quite an admission. The question is why, in the estimates he tabled, Baird didn’t tell the plain truth – that $50-million was planned for the riding projects. Why misslead parliamentarians into believing the money was for border renovations?

It should be noted that the $50-million was more than just a top-up. It was the bulk. The border fund was only $33-million. Baird’s add-on made it $83-million.

Baird explained that the border fund was used as a way of trying to expedite things. He wanted the legacy fund projects – which included things like new sidewalks, outdoor furniture and landscaping, some of which was far away from the Huntsville summit site – to get rolling quickly. But what kind of morality is at play when a senior minister of the Crown feels it’s justifiable to camouflage a major expenditure under a different budgetary category for the sake of hurrying things along?

What Baird likely figured was that the opposition parties would recoil if they learned so much money was being spent on the Clement’s riding projects – largesse that certainly wouldn’t harm his re-election prospects. So he decided to conceal the expenditure, figuring the Auditor-General wouldn’t notice. But the AG noticed.

At the committee hearing almost all the focus of the questioning was on Clement’s alleged transgressions. This minister has enough to answer for in the way he spent the $50-million. But in targeting Clement, the members left a bigger fish floating.

Baird is foreign affairs minister and along with finance minister Jim Flahertyj, the most powerful figure in the government next to the prime minister.

Baird is effective at disarming critics and was so again at the hearings. It was like, ‘Ah well, we made some mistakes, we agree with the Auditor-General, we’ll do better next time, let’s move on.’

He went on and on about how every penny for the G-8 projects has been accounted for. Conservative members on the committee joined in. The only problem with the mutual pat-on-back-session was that it was a red herring. No one was alleging that the money had gone missing.

Baird may feel that, given the soft treatment he was accorded, that he is off the hook. But that is no certainty. Given the evidence, is it not reasonable to conclude that he engaged in a cover-up, that he misslead Parliament, that he should have to pay a price?

While Baird breezed through the session, Clement took a pounding from opposition critics, finally conceding that in hindsight he should have handled the awarding of projects differently. Local mayors in his Parry Sound-Muskoka riding came up with 242 project ideas but instead of submitting them to government officials at Infrastructure Canada for review, Clement let the mayors themselves whittle the list down to 33 projects. In opposition members’ lingo, they were left to “carve up the cash” – federal taxpayers’ cash – among themselves for the projects. Furthermore, as the opposition alleged, there was no paper trail for how all this was done.

Clement couldn’t come up with an explanation for the lack of documentation and for many other strange happenings. Even so, he tried to come across as guiltless. “Today I am hopeful,” he announced “we can finally put an end to the assertions contending that the review process undertaken was in any way unethical.”

As Treasury Board president, a post given to him after the G-8 spending scam came to light, Clement is now charged with reining in excess spending in the government to reduce the large deficit. He is deemed to have enough credibility to do the job.

Editors Note: Column has been corrected from original to indicate Clement’s riding is in Muskoka.